Night and Silence

Night and Silence
Night and Silence, front cover
Publication
Publication Date	September 4, 2018
Format	Novel
Publisher	DAW (US) Corsair (UK) Brilliance Audio
ISBN	978-0756414764
Cover Illustrator	Chris McGrath
Audiobook Narator	Mary Robinette Kowal
Story
Setting Date	December 2013
Point of View	October Daye
Series Continuity
Series	Main Series #12
Novella	Suffer a Sea-Change
Preceded by	The Brightest Fell
Followed by	The Unkindest Tide

Night and Silence (2018) is the twelfth book in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire.

“	Night and silence - who is here?	”
–William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Synopsis

Things are not okay.

In the aftermath of Amandine's latest betrayal, October "Toby" Daye's fragile self-made family is on the verge of coming apart at the seams. Jazz can't sleep, Sylvester doesn't want to see her, and worst of all, Tybalt has withdrawn from her entirely, retreating into the Court of Cats as he tries to recover from his abduction. Toby is floundering, unable to help the people she loves most heal. She needs a distraction. She needs a quest.

What she doesn't need is the abduction of her estranged human daughter, Gillian. What she doesn't need is to be accused of kidnapping her own child by her ex-boyfriend and his new wife, who seems to be harboring secrets of her own. There's no question of whether she'll take the case. The only question is whether she's emotionally prepared to survive it.

Signs of Faerie's involvement are everywhere, and it's going to take all Toby's nerve and all her allies to get her through this web of old secrets, older hatreds, and new deceits. If she can't find Gillian before time runs out, her own child will pay the price.

Two questions remain: Who in Faerie remembered Gillian existed? And what do they stand to gain?

No matter how this ends, Toby's life will never be the same.

Plot

Chapter 1-2: October Daye, Quentin Sollys, and Danny MacReady are hunting down a family of flying hedgehog-like fae creatures called arkan sonney. Danny prods Toby to talk about her feelings and the issues with her relationship with Tybalt. They capture all nine of the arkan sonney and deliver them to a prepared menagerie in Muir Woods, escorted by the local Pixie flock and greeted by Lowri. Nolan Windermere greets the group at the menagerie, and he and Arden Windermere assist with the transfer of the beasts into the enclosure. Danny takes Quentin and Toby home, where May Daye greets Toby in the kitchen, and agrees to go sleep when prompted about Jazz's PTSD.

Chapter 3: Toby makes it to bed just before dawn. She dreams of Tybalt, re-living the instance where he'd left her in response to his own trauma at Amandine's hands. Awakened at 9 a.m., Toby realizes somebody is pounding on the front door: Cliff Marks accompanied by Miranda, looking for Gillian Marks. Miranda accuses Toby of having taken Gillian, and Cliff pleads for Toby's help in finding her. Toby wonders how they knew to find her at her new address, and Cliff admits they hired a PI to find it, continuing research on Toby in preparation for a possible custody battle. He reveals that Gillian was taken from her car, at her residence on Berkeley campus, and there was blood at the scene. Toby exchanges phone numbers with him, then promptly kicks him and Miranda out. Toby wakes May, who insists on coming along on the rescue effort, as her memories contain mothering Gillian from when she'd split off from Toby. Toby then wakes Quentin, and by extension Raj, who had slept over for the night. Raj leaves for the Court of Cats to update Tybalt on the situation. May, Toby, and Quentin embrace for comfort.

Chapter 4: Toby asks Arden to borrow Madden for his tracking skills. He meets them at UC Berkeley and presents a pre-paid parking slip, provided by Arden. Madden shifts to dog form, and May spins together a "Working Dog" vest for him to wear. Toby uses an illusion to get past the crime scene border at Gillian's residence. Toby tries to scent the air for traces of magic, but is overwhelmed by the huge number of magical signatures left over from all the fae students playing Faerie Bride, on top of the mortal scents. They continue forward to Gillian's room and meet Jocelyn Lewis, Gillian's roommate, who is apparently a fan of Toby's, and says her mother is a Gwragen changeling. Toby tries to interrogate Jocelyn, ends up upsetting her, and Quentin steps in to help, convincing Jocelyn to show them what she knows about Gillian's habits. Jocelyn runs off to grab her coat, leaving the gang alone to investigate the room without her. Toby finds a small sachet of herbs in the bottom of one of Gillian's drawers. The sachet is a marshwater charm, and seems to be constructed to repel Fae with an allergic reaction. Toby wraps the sachet in foil and sticks it in Quentin's pocket, then proceeds to find more of them in Gillian's other drawers before Jocelyn returns.

May stays behind to continue to search the room while Toby, Quentin, and Madden follow Jocelyn to the scene of Gillian's car. Jocelyn continues to be amazed by Toby's magic, and mentions that her mother used to know Toby at a younger age. Toby asks if Jocelyn had allergies, and her suspicion is confirmed when Jocelyn says she didn't have them until she came to campus. Jocelyn leads them to Wheeler Hall, where Gillian's car is parked, and expects Toby to thank her. Toby berates Jocelyn for trying to trap her into debt or fealty.

Chapter 5: Bridget Ames comes to the rescue and shoos Jocelyn away. Toby reveals to Bridget that the missing student, Gillian, is her daughter. Bridget says Gillian took her folklore course this year and was a good student, and offers her help on the case. Toby ducks into a creekbed to cast a particularly powerful don't-look-here spell, then sneaks onto the crime scene of the car to investigate more closely. She finds shards of glass on the ground near the car and sniffs out a few with blood on them. She backs away from the car and into one of the campus police, who pursues her back to the creekbed, where she alters her human disguise in order to be unfamiliar to the cop.

May rejoins the group, ridicules Toby's new temporary hair color, and gathers Madden from a gaggle of human students who had gathered around him. Bridget escorts the group to her office, where May informs them that she found more sachets, charms, and trinkets in Gillian's room. Quentin brings forth the sample sachet to show to Bridget, and the gang breaks out in a respiratory allergic reaction. Toby scents the bag to tell Bridget what ingredients are in the sachet: dill, gorse, St. John's wort, fennel, king-cup (marsh marigold), and Scott's kale. Bridget tucks the bag in her desk to get it away from her guests.

Chapter 6: Toby takes the bloody glass from the crime scene out of her pocket, and rides the blood, experiencing Gillian's memories of the abduction; there was a faint scent of cinnamon, which had also been present in the mixture of scents in Gillian's residence. Bridget agrees to take the sachet to Walther Davies and Madden confirms that he has Gillian's scent and can now follow the trail from her car.

Chapter 6: Madden leads the way to the edge of campus and beyond, with Toby, May, and Quentin following along behind him under a don't-look-here. The trail leads to a blank wall between two buildings, which stands out in its blankness -- no graffiti. Toby recognizes it as an illusion and uses Blood Magic to force her way past it and hold the way open for everyone else. Beyond the wall lies a courtyard hidden in the mortal world, and full of fae cultivars, a small house, and a miniature "Baba Yaga" hut on chicken legs, the size of a child's playground house.

Chapter 7: The existence of this courtyard is highly disconcerting to the group, none of whom have any memory or knowledge of it. Toby finds Gillian's clothing in the nest of the hut, deliberately woven in as though placed there on purpose, leading Toby to believe that Gillian had never been in the courtyard. While scenting for any clues (and finding Jocelyn's scent on the clothing), Madden mentions that he'll have to tell Arden about the courtyard, which reminds Toby to tell Shade (through a phone-call to Raj) that the courtyard exists in the bounds of her court. Toby smells the scent of cinnamon again in the courtyard as she investigates the house, picking the lock to get in.

Shade, Arden, and Nolan arrive in the courtyard, acknowledge their pre-existing knowledge of the existence of such a place, and urge everyone out of it, stating that they aren't supposed to be there. Arden and Nolan leave quickly. Shade reassures Toby that Tybalt didn't know about the courtyard agreement, and asks after his well-being, then offers the help of her cats if needed, then departs as well. The group returns to the crime scene, where Gillian's car is now gone.

Chapter 8: Madden finds a second trail at the car, and Toby's phone rings, compromising the integrity of the group's Don't-look-here. Walther, on the phone, beckons them to his office, where he gives them an antidote against the lasting effects of the sachets from Gillian's room. Walther confirms that the sachets were an old, powerful type of marshwater charm, and that they were designed to repel the fae and incapacitate their senses; no-one fae could have made them.

Chapter 9: Toby wracks her brain for a suspect as to who might have done this, and figures that Jocelyn may have hired a human to do it, and greased the palms of Gillian's residence in order to be placed as her roommate. She and Quentin go to confront Jocelyn, only to find her gone and moved out, with a note left for Toby, instructing her to find Jocelyn in 'the place you gave away'.

Meanwhile, May and Madden had tracked the second trail, and their call pulls Toby and Quentin to another location in a hurry. They end up at a house, which is soaked in a spell so powerful that it makes it difficult to look at directly, and impossible to approach. Toby uses blood to break through again, this time unable to bring anyone with her. She finds a burnt-out husk of a house underneath the illusion, threatening to attract too much attention if she were to reveal it to the public. Toby calls Quentin to make sure the phone would still work inside the spell, then ventures on inside alone.

Inside the decrepit house, Toby scents the air deeply and gets a faint trace of rowan wood and cold air over the sea; the signature of the False Queen of the Mists. Toby calls Walther to ask him to call his sister Marlis in the Kingdom of Silences, and find out whether the sleepers imprisoned during the events of A Red-Rose Chain are still there. Following the scent, Toby proceeds to the back of the house, where she finds a bed containing a sleeping Gillian.

Chapter 10: Before she can proceed farther, Walther calls back and confirms that the False Queen still seems to be asleep in Silences. Toby tells Walther that Gillian is there, and Walther grows suspicious of the scene, and asks Toby to bleed in order to clear her mind. Reluctantly, Toby does so, breaking the illusion that masked an emaciated Baobhan Sith, who immediately attacks. During the struggle to fight the creature off, Toby drops and steps on her cell phone, leaving her cut off from help until Tybalt appears on the scene to aid in the fight.

Chapter 11: Working together, Toby and Tybalt fight the Baobhan Sith, then escape to the Shadow Roads, dragging the Baobhan with them until she lets go, then escaping into Shade's Court of Cats to leave the Baobhan Sith in the darkness. Toby realizes she'd dropped her knife during the fight. Tybalt explains that Raj had lent him his phone, which Quentin had called when Toby had begun screaming. Tybalt also apologizes for having not been there from the beginning, and offers to stay despite his damage. Toby pleads to go back to the house, and Tybalt figures that the Baobhan Sith would have escaped the Shadow Road by now, prioritizing escape over feeding. He also reveals that Baobhan Sith can imitate their victims, implying that she could imitate Toby, and thus giving them a reason to hurry back to May, Quentin, and Madden.

Tybalt returns them to the room of the fight, Toby retrieves her knife and broken phone, and they exit the house together under human disguises to be reunited with Quentin, May, Madden, and Walther, who had rushed to the scene after his call with Toby had been suddenly dropped. Toby sends Madden back to Muir Woods to let Arden know about the Baobhan Sith, which had been believed to be extinct in the Mists for years. Rather than continuing to try to follow any false leads, Toby decides to follow up on the note from Jocelyn, alerting Quentin to the possibility that Dean Lorden might be in danger, as Goldengreen is one of the places that Toby 'gave away.' Quentin tries to call Dean and gets no response, making it suddenly urgent that they get there to check on him. Toby, Quentin, May, and Tybalt drive to Goldengreen under a don't-look-here.

Chapter 12: Using the cliffside entrance (with May going first to test it), the gang enters the knowe to find the pixies asleep and Marcia in the kitchen, awake and baking. She feeds Toby and confirms that it would be a bad idea for any thin-blood to learn fae-repelling tricks, lest they become a bigger target for the prejudices against thin-bloods and merlins. Thus, Jocelyn is likely not the one who made the sachets. Quentin checks on Dean, confirms his safety, and the group moves along.

Toby stops by Cliff and Miranda's house to update their contact information, as her dead phone was the only one with Cliff's number. With May at her side and Quentin and Tybalt in the car, Toby is met at the front door by Miranda, who lets them in and explains that Cliff is at the police station, then demands to know who May is, knowing that Toby is an only child Toby's sister. Toby uses the "estranged family" cover story and Miranda leads them to the kitchen, where Toby spies an herb garden which contains every ingredient of the sachets. Toby confronts her, Miranda tries to attack with a poisoned thorn, Toby gets hit but shrugs it off, and Miranda is forced to admit that she is is an ancient human from Scotland named Janet, who broke Maeve's last ride, and was cursed by Maeve to live forever. She is also the mother of Amandine, making her Toby's grandmother, and Gillian's great-grandmother.

Chapter 13: May realizes that she recognizes Janet from Oberon's court, from one of May's past lives, and Toby is forced to acknowledge that Miranda is telling the truth. Miranda/Janet apologizes for not making room for Toby in Gillian's life once Toby returned from the pond. She also reveals that Berkeley is an independent fiefdom specifically because Oberon gifted her the land. Janet confirms that the hidden courtyard they'd found is where she disappears to for a couple decades when her lack of aging becomes suspicious. Toby realizes that whoever left the trail to the courtyard may be targeting Janet, and insists that she evacuate for the sake of Cliff's safety. Janet eventually agrees, and leaves a note for Cliff, before allowing herself to be taken to Toby's "friend" for safekeeping.

Chapter 14-15: For protection and answers, Toby takes Janet to the Luidaeg, who is resistant to allowing her mother's betrayer inside. reluctantly invites them in to get them off the streets for a conversation. Toby inquires after Poppy, who is asleep. The Luidaeg tells the story of Janet and Tam Lin, and accuses Janet of breaking Faerie 500 years ago. Despite this, Toby asks the Luidaeg to protect Janet. The Luidaeg dispels the illusions over the group, revealing the blood from Toby's fight with Janet. She insists on making a sandwich for Toby while Janet tells her own side of the story. Janet reveals that the instructions for how to break the ride came from Eira Rosynhwyr.

Toby asks whether the Luidaeg could help find Gillian, but she is already too far in debt to be able to add to it. Toby accepts this, and reveals to everyone that she had smelled the False Queen's magic, and that Gillian is probably being held in the old knowe that Toby had found for the Queen. Toby asks the Luidaeg to promise to protect Janet, and she reluctantly agrees.

Chapter 16: While driving to the old abandoned knowe, Toby asks Tybalt whether he can access the deeper parts of it through the Court of Cats. He admits that he can, and the group splits up- Quentin and May go in the front entrance as a distraction, while Toby and Tybalt sneak in through the back. While traveling through the Shadow Roads, Toby and Tybalt are attacked by the Baobhan Sith, who had not escaped after all. The Baobhan gets more of Toby's blood, then Tybalt tackles the Baobhan away from her. Tybalt scoops Toby up and escapes to the Court of Cats/the back of the False Queen's knowe.

Toby appeals to the knowe, which seems to work - a door swings open, and appears to be a shortcut to a kitchen, where Toby grabs a turkey leg for sustenance. Letting the knowe lead them, Toby and Tybalt wander through the halls until they find the main throne room, where May and Quentin had already arrived and been Elf-shot.

Chapter 17: The False Queen strikes Gillian, and Toby rushes to attack. The Queen demands that Toby restore her stolen Siren blood, and when Toby says it's impossible, the Queen stabs Gillian with Elf-shot, ensuring her death unless Toby is somehow able to restore her fae blood, thus proving she could do the same for the Queen. Tybalt catches Gillian's body, and Toby asks him to take Gillian to the Luidaeg to see if she can save Gillian's life, then to fetch Dianda Lorden for backup. He leaves through the Shadow Roads with Gillian in his arms. The False Queen takes this as a sign that Toby would rather uphold her 'lie' and let her daughter die, than to restore the lost Siren blood. Toby charges to attack the Queen, but stops when the Queen points out that Toby still has no idea who woke her and smuggled her out of the kingdom of Silences. As the Queen continues to taunt, Toby rushes her.

Chapter 18: Jocelyn stabs Toby with her own sword and reveals that her mother had been one of Devin's kids, Tracy Wilson. Jocelyn and the False Queen team up on Toby, beating her down and stabbing her with a Folletti blade until Tybalt returns to the scene, dragging the Baobhan Sith out of the Shadow Roads behind him. The Baobhan attacks the False Queen while Jocelyn pleads with Toby to change her blood, and reveals that the one who woke the Queen was Dugan Harrow. Tybalt saves Toby from Jocelyn's threat, and Toby stops him from killing Jocelyn in anger, and asks him to take the Folletti blade from her back.

The Baobhan Sith steps out from where she'd left the False Queen alive, and now sentient again after feeding enough, introduces herself as Kennis. She calls for a truce, which Toby grants. Kennis apologizes for her actions under the influence of hunger, and Toby starts to catch her up on what had happened in the recent past.

Toby refuses Tybalt to tell her the result of Gillian's fate, lest she fall apart upon hearing it. She retrieves Quentin's phone from his pocket and uses it to call Shadowed Hills, reaching Etienne and asking him to retrieve Sylvester Torquill so he can meet her in the old Queen's knowe. Next, she calls Walther to ask him for some Elf-shot cure, promising Tybalt will come to pick it up. Dianda, Patrick Lorden, and their army arrive on the scene as backup, and aid in imprisoning the False Queen and Jocelyn. Sylvester and Etienne also arrive, and Toby embraces Sylvester for comfort. Sylvester promises to guard the scene while Toby goes to the Luidaeg to find out what had happened with Gillian.

Chapter 19: Tybalt arrives with Toby through the Shadow Roads into the living room of the Luidaeg's apartment, made possible after the sea witch had offered to open the wards to him. The Luidaeg tells Toby that Gillian is alive, shortly after which Toby goes into shock and the Luidaeg shoos Tybalt off to get the elf-shot cure. The Luidaeg gives Toby a potion to help her heal from her injuries, which also paralyzes Toby long enough to have a whole conversation without her running off.

The Luidaeg explains that in order to save Gillian's life, she had to remove the mortality from her blood. She did so by wrapping Gillian in Firtha's skin, turning Gillian into a Selkie. The elf-shot is still in her blood, however, so Gillian must remain wrapped in the skin for the 100 years it will take for the poison to wear off, lest she become human again and start to die all over again. After letting Toby recover a little more, she takes her to see Gillian, who is just waking up.

Chapter 20: Gillian becomes upset at the fantastical elements forcing their way into her reality, and Toby tries to break it to her easily that she is no longer human. She assures Gillian that she will be able to eventually return to her life, and that Miranda is there and knows about the Fae. Toby asks Gillian whether there had been any shady characters at her residence, and Gillian confirms Jocelyn's "new boyfriend," whose description matches that of Dugan. Gillian thanks Toby for saving her life, without knowing the meaning behind the words. Toby leaves to let Miranda take over, and goes back downstairs to meet back up with Tybalt. He fills in Toby on everyone's status; everyone is back at Muir Woods, where the two of them go through the Shadow Roads to meet up with Arden.

Chapter 21: As they walk through the woods to the knowe, escorted once again by pixies, Tybalt apologizes again for leaving Toby when he'd been hurting. Greeted again by Lowri, Toby interrogates her about Dugan. Lowri confirms that Dugan was an un-landed Baron, who would lord his title over others. She tells the story of how the False Queen had tortured Dugan into compliance by leaving him in the iron-soaked dungeon for a fortnight. Escorted through the knowe, Toby and Tybalt proceed forward to meet with Arden, and to reunite with Madden, May, and Quentin. Toby confirms for them that Gillian is alive, and now a part of faerie. Before she can continue to explain, one of the servants jumps out from under an illusion, and reveals himself to be Dugan. He accuses Toby of being a liar, says she'll fix things now, grabs Nolan by the neck, and uses a potion to teleport the two of them away, leaving behind a scent trace of juniper sap and quince - the magic of Gilad Windermere.

Chapter 22: Arden offers herself up to Toby in order to find Nolan. Toby cuts Arden with her knife, and uses her blood to follow the trail left behind by Dugan, opening a portal back to the False Queen's knowe with Tybalt following behind her. Toby sends Tybalt back to Muir Woods to get the rest of Arden's forces. Toby steps out of the mist to play distraction, and Dugan threatens Nolan's life with an iron knife, demanding once again that Toby return the Siren blood to the False Queen. Arden and her backup arrive on the scene, and Dugan drops Nolan and attempts suicide with the iron knife. Toby rushes to save his life, gets a taste of his blood, and discovers that the traps - Janet's courtyard and Kennis' nest - were the False Queen's idea to grind Toby down and make her compliant. Toby cries into Tybalt's shoulder.

Chapter 23-24: Later that day, Tybalt stays at home with Raj while Toby visits Cliff to advise him of Gillian's cover story, explaining a mortal version of why Gillian is alive but not yet there, and why Miranda is gone. She spins a story of the reason for Gillian's second disappearance, playing it off as a college prank gone wrong. As payment for the job of finding Gillian, Toby demands that Cliff allow her to be a part of Gillian's life, and he reluctantly agrees to try.

On the way back, May advises Toby on how to aid Tybalt in his healing process. With Raj back holding the throne in the Court of Cats, Tybalt greets Toby and May at home with a basket full of sandwiches, and insists that October eat the brunt of them. Back at Muir Woods, Arden portals Toby, Tybalt, Quentin, and Madden to the Kingdom of Silences where Siwan Yates greets them, and they discover that the False Queen still sleeping there is a constructed illusion made of dead leaves and flowers and a pumpkin, constructed to last for years. Toby confirms that King Rhys is still there and still asleep, and guesses as to Dugan's motivations for his actions. Marlis covers for Tybalt, Quentin, and Toby while the three of them venture out into the mortal world of Portland.

Quentin parts ways to get doughnuts for Jazz, while Toby and Tybalt go to visit Jolgeir, who ushers them into the Court of Whispering Cats. Tybalt admits his mental trauma, and asks Jolgeir's permission for his Princess daughter, Ginevra, to come hold Tybalt's throne while Tybalt completes his recovery and Raj completes his training. Jolgeir leaves the decision up to his daughter.

Characters

Major

Allies

• October Daye: Dochas Sidhe changeling, knight of Shadowed Hills, hero in the Mists
• Quentin Sollys: Daoine Sidhe, Toby's squire, blind foster to Shadowed Hills, Crown Prince of the Westlands
• May Daye: Toby's Fetch and roommate
• Gillian Marks: Toby's human daughter; knows nothing of Faerie
• Luidaeg: Firstborn, sea witch, Toby's aunt
• Miranda Marks: also called Janet of Caughteragh. Human but cursed with immortality for breaking Maeve's Ride. Gillian's stepmother
• Tybalt: King of Cats, Toby's fiance

Antagonists

• Jocelyn Lewis: thinblooded changeling, UC Berkeley student
• The false Queen of the Mists: deposed, Sea Wight/Banshee (Siren blood removed), hates Toby
• Dugan Harrow: Daoine Sidhe, the false Queen's follower

Minor

• Danny MacReady: Bridge Troll, Toby's ally
• Arden Windermere: Tuatha de Dannan, true Queen in the Mists
• Nolan Windermere: Tuatha de Dannan, Crown Prince in the Mists, Arden's brother
• Raj: Prince of Cats, Tybalt's heir, Quentin's best friend
• Cliff Marks: human, Gillian's father, Toby's ex
• Lowri: Glaistig, Arden's Captain of the Guard
• Madden: Cu Sidhe, Arden's seneschal
• Cagney and Lacey: Toby's mortal cats
• Spike: Toby's pet rose goblin
• Bridget Ames: human, folklore professor, married to Etienne
• Etienne: Tuatha de Dannan, Sylvester Torquill's seneschal
• Sylvester Torquill: Duke of Shadowed Hills, Toby's father figure
• Walther Davies: Tylwyth Teg, chemistry professor and alchemist
• Chloe: human, Gillian and Jocelyn's resident advisor
• Dean Lorden: Merrow / Daoine Sidhe, Count of Goldengreen, Quentin's boyfriend
• Marcia: thin-blooded changeling, Dean's seneschal
• Kennis: Baobhan Sith, imprisoned by the false Queen
• Dianda Lorden: Merrow, Duchess of Saltmist, Dean's mother
• Siwan Yates: Tylwyth Teg, Queen of Silences, Walther's aunt
• Jolgeir: King of Whispering Cats in Portland, Tybalt's old friend

Mentioned

• Chelsea Ames: Tuatha de Dannan, Etienne and Bridget's daughter
• Jazz: Raven-maid, May's live-in girlfriend
• Amandine: Firstborn, Toby's mother
• August Torquill: Dochas Sidhe, Amandine and Simon's daughter, Toby's elder sister
• Gilad Windermere (deceased): former King in the Mists, Arden and Nolan's father
• Evening Winterrose, also called Eira Rosynhwyr: Firstborn, enemy of the Luidaeg and Toby
• Aethlin Sollys: High King of the Westlands, Quentin's father
• Cassandra Brown: changeling, Toby's niece, graduate student at UC Berkeley
• Rayseline Torquill (elf-shot): Sylvester and Luna's daughter
• Luna Torquill: Blodynbryd, Duchess of Shadowed Hills
• Dare Lorimer (deceased): changeling, hero-worshiped Toby, as a nighthaunt chose to become Toby's Fetch
• Simon Torquill: Sylvester's twin brother, Amandine's legal husband, Toby's stepfather. It's complicated.
• Oleander de Merelands (deceased): assassain
• January O'Leary: Daoine Sidhe, recently brought back to life
• April O'Leary: techno-Dryad, former Countess of Tamed Lightning
• Devin (deceased): changeling, leader of Home, Toby's former mentor
• Tam Lin (presumably deceased): human, intended as a sacrifice to Faerie
• Tracy Wilson: changeling, Jocelyn's mother, former resident of Home
• Firtha (deceased): Roane
• Ginevra: Cait Sidhe, Princess of Cats
• Connor O'Dell (deceased): Selkie, Toby's former lover

Locations

• Kingdom in the Mists
  • San Francisco
  • Muir Woods
  • Toby's house
  • Luidaeg's apartment
  • Goldengreen
  • False Queen's knowe
  • Shadow Roads
  • Independent region of Berkeley
    • UC Berkeley
    • Janet's Courtyard
    • Court of Golden Cats (mentioned)
• Kingdom of Silences
  • Portland
  • Court of Whispering Cats

Continuity

Debts

• Arden may or may not consider it a formal favor when she lends Madden's help to Toby
• Toby doesn't feel like she can ask any favors of Sylvester until she resolves the Simon issue
• Toby is deep in the Luidaeg's debt for countless reasons, but the Luidaeg does not charge her for making Gillian a Selkie because the Luidaeg knows the pain of burying your own children.

Current Book

• It is revealed that the Luidaeg can turn an ordinary human - with no hint of Faerie in their blood - into a Selkie.
• Humans who have had their fae blood removed are revealed to have the "ghosts" of their former magical signature in their blood, as described by Toby when she tasted Gillian's blood.
• Marshwater charms can be severe enough to induce an allergic reaction to Fae, as revealed by Walther.
• It is revealed here that Jolgeir's middle daughter Ginevra has the magic of a Cait Sidhe Princess after Toby rebalanced her blood in between A Rose-Red Chain and Once Broken Faith.
• Toby had the sex talk with Quentin since he started dating Dean.
• UC Berkeley is neutral ground, partly due to Janet's claim and partly because knowledge belongs to everybody.
• Toby has fans who follow her exploits
• "Thank you" doesn't always trap you in debt, just implies a heavy enough obligation for the fae to avoid it, but humans and changelings have mistaken it to mean an inescapable magical debt between people
• Walther works on alchemical mixes and tinctures to make them more accessible to the less powerful denizens of Faerie. He's a "social activist" about it.
• Merlins don't follow the normal divisions of magical types - they can be good or bad at healing, blood, or illusion magic. It mostly depends on their ability to put together a ritual.
• Toby doth protest too much about not wanting to take on any more squires after Quentin and Raj graduate.
• Marcia has brought half the thin-blooded changelings in San Francisco to Goldengreen
• Amandine was named after the almond trees that grew in Janet's childhood orchards
• Janet is trapped in stasis until Maeve's return
• While most purebloods are bisexual, May specifically doesn't like men. She'll make an exception for a Tybalt-clone of her own, though.

Previous Books

• Toby helped April bring January back to life.
• The war against the merlins

Future Books

• Gillian is now a Selkie. The Luidaeg called in the Selkies' debts. This is a problem.

Suspected Foreshadowing (unconfirmed)

• Toby notes that the false Queen's hatred of her has never been fully explained or understood; it seems to go beyond general prejudice against changelings
• Why did the false Queen make Toby surrender all claim to her new knowe? Why would she think Toby would want it someday?
• How long does blood stay in a Baobath Sith's system? How long will Toby's?
• The false Queen's knowe is patterned with an abstract pattern resembling the rolling lines of hills or dunes, which may hint at who had crafted it in the first place. Toby also encourages the knowe to let pixies nest there.
• Putting a new King of Cats on the throne requires either the old king or the court itself to relocate; either Tybalt or Raj is going to have to move when Tybalt steps down.

Discrepancies

• According to Toby, the false Queen's knowe began caving in--> the Queen put out word she was looking for another --> Dawn Winterrose was murdered --> Toby found both the man who knifed Dawn and a new knowe --> the Queen opened the knowe--> Toby earned knighthood, but had to renounce claim to the knowe herself
  • According to Strangers in Court, the false Queen's knowe completely caved in--> Toby used the memorial globe of the already-dead Dawn to find a new knowe--> Toby convinced the knowe to open for her, then gave it to the queen--> Toby earned the right to try for her knighthood, but had to formally declare that doing so settled the false Queen's debt.
  • McGuire says she tried to keep it consistent and any discrepencies are less "Toby is is an unreliable narrator" and more "Toby has an unreliable author."

Quotes

Cultural References

• "Night and silence - who is here?" -William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream is about young lovers who are manipulated by fairies, as well as Oberon's punishment of his wife Titania through a farcical love potion. This quote is spoken by the jester fairy Puck, who then doses two mortals with love potion, at Oberon's instruction but the wrong couple.
    • Toby has kept silence from Gillian about the truth of Fae, the nocturnal side of her heritage, and left her ignorant of the dangers surrounding her.
    • Oberon's romantic pursuits led to an affair with Janet, which led to Amandine's line.
• "True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as think of substance as the air." - Toby quoting Romeo and Juliet for a spell
• Rube Goldberg

Miscellaneous

• "Maeve forbid your cats should go unfed. They might wither away to nothing." -Arden
• "This is all the offices and faculty space. It'll doubtless be gutted the next time someone gets it in their head to renovate and 'modernize,' replaced by some sort of commons that gives us nowhere to do our work in peace, but for now, we can get about without treading on students every time we turn around. Love them, Lord knows we do; that doesn't make the process of educating them any easier when they insist on being present all the time." -Bridget Ames
• "These are college students. I watched one of them spend a semester trying to train squirrels to bring him Mountain Dew from the vending machine because he was too lazy to get up and press the button." -Walther
• "If you're hurt, you let me help you heal. If you're damaged, we learn the ways around it together. I don't care whether you can be fixed. I don't care whether you flinch at shadows. All I want is for you to be with me--and let me be part of whatever 'getting better' looks like now." -Toby to Tybalt
• "Ah, yes. I begin to remember why I missed you so. The glorious spectacle of watching a woman do her best to bully the universe into rearranging itself according to her utterly self-destructive whim." -Tybalt
• "There's nothing wrong with being hurt. We all get hurt. But you shouldn't have been hiding from us. We're your family, and you're stupid if you think we would judge you for needing help. We help each other." -Quentin to Tybalt
• "The day I cannot carry my heart along the Shadow Roads is the day I am a King no longer, but only a man who has failed himself so profoundly that his days of peace are done." -Tybalt
• "When the blood slowed, she took her hands away and ran them down the front of her shirt, leaving gory handprints behind. 'Now we're twinsies.'" -May
• “You lost a great deal of blood.” “I didn’t lose it,” I said. “I know exactly where it is.”
• “Your head. It’s got its own undertow, you know, and if you swim too deep, it can suck you down. You can’t chase the tide. You need to stay on the shore and let it come to you. I’m not going to tell you that everything is going to be fine. I wouldn’t do it even if I was still allowed to lie. Some things are too cruel even for a sea witch. But I will tell you that what’s on the other side of that door is never going to be as bad as the undertow in your own mind.” -Luidaeg
• “That’s the thing about time, about youth. It passes, and you become a bit more yourself with every day gone.”
• “You say things, and I’m sure they make sense in your head, but they don’t make much sense outside of it.”
• “I’ve never deposed anyone who didn’t deserve it,” I said. “And I’ve only done it twice.”
• "The sea witch was a surprisingly calm and competent driver. She used her turn signals”
• “There are nights when I feel like my life should come with some sort of flowchart, and then there are the nights when I feel like even that would be too confusing to understand.”
• “We’re all afraid. That’s what it is to be a mother. We’re all afraid.” -Luidaeg
• “Hearts are resilient. They can heal over and over again. That’s the good part. The bad part is that having a resilient heart means it can be broken so many times that it feels like it should never recover, like it should be nothing but a pile of shards in my chest.”